Mt lemmon fire

[ASUHATER!]

Anyone in Tucson looking at the huge fire on Pusch ridge right now?

[Alieberman]

Anyone in Tucson looking at the huge fire on Pusch ridge right now?

I was at Mt Lemmon all day with my kids today and there was nothing.

So weird

[SCCats]

It looks pretty serious. I don't really know how they can fight it with such a long fire line until...well, it eventually gets to the houses and you have ground where you can fight it. But that's a pretty tenuous situation...

[ASUHATER!]

everything I've read is that they are ignoring it and not fighting it at all because it's on the steep slope of the mountain and is inaccessible. Also saying that it currently poses no threat to homes. Sure looks big and scary though, especially at night. View from a friend's backyard on Facebook

[Olsondogg]

[Jefe]

Started last Wednesday from a lightning strike. Everyone thought the rain that night put it out but it kept growing. 150 acres last night, now its over 500.

Timelapse video: http://websta.me/p/1045731767703381441_19324936

[KillerKlown]

I was up there near skyline and swan delivering last friday and it was a very small fire, like it just started. 5 min later it rained hard for about 20 min. After that it looked like it was slowly going to die out. I guess not.

[Jefe]

All the new UofA buildings

[Alieberman]

Jefe- where are you getting those photos?

If they weren't so sad, they would be great.

[Jefe]

Twitter/Instagram with #FingerRockFire. The very first one is from a friends house

Another incredible time lapse video: https://www.facebook.com/NWSTucson/vide ... 1059091746

This is what it looks like with 700mm of lens and a stitched panorama. I'm about 20 miles away from the fire.

[UAdevil]

http://tucson.com/news/local/fire-on-th ... a7015.html

Fire on the mountain will make forest healthier



Enjoy the fire show in the mountains north of Tucson while you can.

It may not last long in the monsoon moisture.

The Finger Rock Fire is one of five burning in Arizona right now that aren’t being actively fought.

From the Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon to the front range of the Santa Catalina Mountains above Tucson, the fires are burning moderately through fire-adapted landscapes, clearing out excess vegetation, making the forests healthier and decreasing the potential for more serious burns.

In Arizona this year, about 60,000 acres of wildfire have been managed for multiple objectives, including their benefit to the ecosystem of the forests. That figure includes the Whitetail Fire, which burned across 31,000 acres of the San Carlos Apache Reservation in June.

The Pusch Ridge Wilderness, where this very visible fire is burning, used to have fires every decade or so, but hasn’t burned in 80 years, said Coronado National Forest spokeswoman Heidi Schewel. The brush is unnaturally thick. “This fire is a tool we can use to deal with that,” Schewel said.

“This is a perfect fire,” said University of Arizona fire ecologist Don Falk, an advocate for bringing back landscape-scale fires to the West’s forests and one of the developers of a Firescape program for the Coronado National Forest.

“It was started by nature and not some irresponsible camper. It’s burning in mixed fuels in the humidity of the monsoon when fires get started and never get very big, and the Forest Service has done exactly the right thing — they’ve been watching it.”

They are not the only ones. Falk said he drove to a friend’s house in the Foothills Wednesday night, where a steady line of traffic brought people to watch the fire like they would the Fourth of July fireworks.

Jim Malusa, a research scientist with the UA’s Department of Natural Resources, watched with his family from the roof of his midtown home. Malusa has mapped the vegetation zones of the Catalinas for the Firescape program.

This fire is burning a variety of vegetation, he said.

“The flamers are mostly in grassland with the evil shin-daggers and lots of other fire-adapted plants. Those plants are primed to jump back up with the rains,” he said.

As the fire burned upward into pinyon-juniper, it burned low, he said. “It wasn’t in the canopy of those trees.”

Malusa said the fire could be “the best one we’ve had in the Catalinas for a long time” — so long as it doesn’t creep down the front slope into desert terrain that has been invaded by buffelgrass.

The fire started with a lightning strike on July 29, but grew little in high humidity and intermittent rain until Wednesday, when the humidity dropped, the wind picked up and the fire moved east, Schewel said. It also “slopped into Finger Rock Canyon,” and covered about 750 acres by late Thursday.

Schewel said fire managers decided last week to monitor the fire rather than engage it, for a number of reasons, the first being safety of firefighters in the rugged, remote terrain.

It was not threatening any structures and it was burning in a location that needed fire, she said.

Crews are available to fight the fire should it begin moving downward toward civilization, she said, but by Thursday morning, it was not moving and a reconnaissance team reported light rain falling.

It’s the nature of a monsoon fire to ebb and flow, said David Robinson, fuels specialist for the National Park Service and the Kaibab National Forest, where a 3,900-acre fire is being managed for resource benefit.

The Burnt Complex of lightning-caused fires has been ebbing and flowing for 30 days on a ponderosa pine landscape of rolling ridges and valleys.

On wet days, a two-person crew is sufficient for monitoring the fire. When things dry out, more crews are called in, Robinson said.

“We’re returning fire to a fire-adapted ecosystem, to promote nutrient cycling, reduce dead-and-down surface fuels and to thin out naturally some of the denser areas where we have understory trees. It’s a natural process,” he said.

The weather this year, with rain in May and an early start to the monsoon in June, kept fire acreage down across the Southwest and it has made management decisions easier.

“This season has provided us with opportunities to utilize fire in its natural role to clear excess vegetation,” Schewel said.

What the Finger Rock Fire does next “is going to depend a lot on the weather.”

“It’s doing what we see these lightning fires do during the monsoon. You get ignition, some burning and then rain that may or may not put it out.”

[Jefe]

Got to 750 acres but its pretty much out now due to rain yesterday and this morning. These are all from 2 nights ago

[UAEebs86]

[RichardCranium]

Cant see any evidence of this from 15th floor of Tucson House (Oracle and Drachman). Channel 9 says no fire fighting resources until tomorrow.

Drove up Mt. Lemon yesterday an saw NO evidence of the Molina fire from a few days ago either.

[UAEebs86]

Cant see any evidence of this from 15th floor of Tucson House (Oracle and Drachman).

Drove up Mt. Lemon yesterday an saw NO evidence of the Molina fire from a few days ago either.

It was clearly visible out here in Vail when I was out around 9:00.

[ASUHATER!]

Biggest question is why are you in the 15th story of Tucson House.

[scumdevils86]

Saw nothing a couple hours ago from my backyard on Prince and Campbell.

[Merkin]

Biggest question is why are you in the 15th story of Tucson House.

Not even sure any buildings were that tall in that part of town.

Visiting relatives?

Originally designed by Chicago developers to be a luxury high-rise apartment building with hotel-like amenities. Tallest building in Tucson from 1963-1967, and still the tallest residential building in the city. Currently owned by the City of Tucson and utilized as public housing for the elderly and disabled.

[RichardCranium]

Biggest question is why are you in the 15th story of Tucson House.

Visiting my sister.

Why is that a 'big' question?

[scumdevils86]

How long since you've been in tucson rc?

[RichardCranium]

8 years.

[scumdevils86]

Downtown is definitely drastically different since 2009!

[RichardCranium]

Downtown is definitely drastically different since 2009!

Yes.

I really like the development around the Lyric and H. Congress. The streetcar is great - but there needs to be some action on the west end bomb sites.

Pity about El Con. What was the justification for tearing down the connecring mall?

[legallykenny]

Downtown is definitely drastically different since 2009!

Yes.

I really like the development around the Lyric and H. Congress. The streetcar is great - but there needs to be some action on the west end bomb sites.

Pity about El Con. What was the justification for tearing down the connecring mall?

Mid-market malls are a dead business.

[UAEebs86]

The fire that started near Green Valley is getting bad and headed toward Sonoita:

[Jefe]

Latest estimate is over 15K acres burned

[UAEebs86]

Just a horrible fire. We were just down in that area helping my daughter with a research project for college a couple weeks ago. Almost don't
want to go back and see the damage to that beautiful area.

[UAEebs86]

Fucking moron


http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/rep ... es-burned/


A man target shooting on state land Sunday morning started the Sawmill Fire that had burned 40,000 acres by Wednesday midday, according to several sources who spoke with the Green Valley News.

The man was firing at exploding targets when brush apparently ignited near Box Canyon and the Santa Rita Ranch about 11 a.m. He tried to put out the blaze, then called to report it. He later turned himself in, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

John Cambra, a public information officer with the Southeast Arizona Incident Management Team, the team fighting the fire, would not confirm the reports.

“It's human-caused, under investigation,” he said, adding that there were no arrests. He would not discuss whether anybody had been questioned.

Heidi Schewel, a public affairs officer for the Coronado National Forest, also would not confirm the reports.

“Our statement is (that) our case is under investigation,” she said.

Exploding targets are created by mixing two types of powder in a container and are detonated when shot by a high-velocity firearm bullet.

[Merkin]

[dovecanyoncat]

Fucking moron

"If your wife wants to take a bath and she has to ask you to move the transmission, you might be a [moron]."

[84Cat]

Fucking moron


http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/rep ... es-burned/


A man target shooting on state land Sunday morning started the Sawmill Fire that had burned 40,000 acres by Wednesday midday, according to several sources who spoke with the Green Valley News.

The man was firing at exploding targets when brush apparently ignited near Box Canyon and the Santa Rita Ranch about 11 a.m. He tried to put out the blaze, then called to report it. He later turned himself in, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

John Cambra, a public information officer with the Southeast Arizona Incident Management Team, the team fighting the fire, would not confirm the reports.

“It's human-caused, under investigation,” he said, adding that there were no arrests. He would not discuss whether anybody had been questioned.

Heidi Schewel, a public affairs officer for the Coronado National Forest, also would not confirm the reports.

“Our statement is (that) our case is under investigation,” she said.

Exploding targets are created by mixing two types of powder in a container and are detonated when shot by a high-velocity firearm bullet.

An off-duty Border Patrol agent shooting recreationally was involved in the Sawmill Fire, the agency confirmed Thursday.

http://tucson.com/news/local/border-pat ... 0481b.html" target="_blank